A spiritual Blog

Wrong Place for Human Souls

“God created every thing for and in that wherein it should be; the Angels for and in Heaven, and Man for and in Paradise. If therefore the desire of the creature goes forth from its own mother, then it enters into the contrary will and into enmity, and it is tormented with the contrariness therein, and so a false will arises in a good; and then the good will enters into its nothing again, viz. Into the end of Nature and Creature, and so leaves the Creature to its own evil or wickedness, as appears by Lucifer and also Adam; and had not the will of the love of God meant with Adam, … there could be no good will in Man.

“Therefore all speculation and inquiry about God’s will is a vain thing, unless the mind be converted. For when the mind stands captivated by the self-desire of the earthly life, it cannot comprehend what the will of God is.” Jacob Boehme

In the Right Place

God created everything in the place where it should be. As Boehme says, he created Angels in heaven and Man in Paradise. This clearly means that to Boehme at least, Heaven and Paradise are two different things. When we think of it as dimensions, we could say that angels were created in one spiritual dimension, and man in another. Exactly what the difference is between the two is not really important.

In the Wrong Place

What is important is that Man is clearly not in paradise anymore. So what happened? The Great Fall happened. The story of Adam and Eve being kicked out of paradise is one variation of the Great Fall. The story of Lucifer and his cohorts turning from God and creating a realm of their own (the universe of matter), is another. Both tales end in the same result: man has fallen into a lower dimension than he was meant to be in.

The Contrary

Even though we are in the wrong place, the realm of matter, we can choose to be spiritual rather than materialistic. We can choose to be generous rather than greedy. We can practice humility rather than arrogance.

Boehme says those who instead choose the contrary path from its mother will end with enmity. By the path of the mother, he means the original place of humans. The right place in Paradise rather than the wrong place in the material universe.

So those who choose the contrary path are those who have not just accepted that they have a material side, but embrace it as their true self. They generally value material goods and material wealth above all things. Yet they are generally unhappy people because they live in constant fear that those material things they value will be taken from them. They have good reason to fear. But it is not because the might lose those material goods, it is because they lose the opportunity to awaken and develop their immortal spirit and soul.

God’s Will

When you are in the wrong place, it is hard to understand what God’s will is. It is even harder to understand what your contribution to accomplishing that Will (or Plan) might be. Spiritual things cannot truly be understood by the intellect of the brain-mind. Only the soul can understand spiritual things including the Will of God. That is why awakening the soul is necessary while we are still trapped on the material plane.

On a basic level, we do know what God’s will is for us and the planet. Actually, the entire physical universe. That plan is to turn it all back into spirit. But because God gave us a certain degree of free will He won’t do it without our consent. Neither will he do it without our help.

The bad news, however, is that the physical universe is like a tumor in the body of God. Two things can be done with that tumor. One option is that it can be transformed back into healthy spirit. The other option is that it can be pushed out of the body of God and be on its own forever. In short, we can be abandoned by God as a lost cause. Trust me, you do not want that to happen. We do not want to be in the wrong place forever. So it behooves all of us to start helping God transform the world by first transforming ourselves. Beyond that, we can do a lot more to understand and follow the will of God. But as Boehme says, we have to give up our desire to bask in the sun of materialism and turn instead to the spiritual sun. That doesn’t mean we have to give up all material goods and comforts, just don’t get attached to them. And don’t get greedy about material possessions. That will push you deeper into the wrong place and further away from Paradise.